Building a Studio Addition
Building a Studio Addition |
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| Overview | Drawings | Foundation prep | Masonry work | Interior | Glass rack | Ventilation |
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Going into the concrete slab was the big commitment step for me. I rented this big ass concrete cutter. Running the concrete cutter was a hoot. Note how the muffler is positioned right where you have to watch the blade. The exhaust fumes are nice because they go straight into your lungs and that it keeps you warm in the winter. Running the thing is a combination of running the water, lowering the blade down, and then there's a clutch to engage the machine forward or backward. Its like a 20 hp motor yanking a $900 blade around and you get soaked with water while you try to keep the thing from bending the blade or cutting your carport in half. By carefully fiddling with the clutch mechanism you can get the pic to just barely crawl forward. You could back it off when the thing started wagging around. It was hard to line up the cut along the chaulk line I put down. It was pretty freaky to operate and it was cold.
I rented this big job because I thought the slab was six inches. Turns out once I cut into the thing it varied a lot but most of the time it was only around four inches. If I was going to do it again I'd rent a handheld circular saw. Lot easier.
Okay I made the cut in the concrete then I got this electric jack hammer. That thing rocked, jackhammers are a ball. Even though it was electric it sailed through the concrete. Jackhammering is not a lot of effort. The machine does the work. The only work comes from having to lift the thing out of the whatever hole it whacks into the concrete. Just pull the trigger and go.
Once the concrete was out of the way I had to dig out the fill under the slab. I dug down like 30 inches. Why, I'm not sure. I think I only had to go to 24 inches. The fill had sunk several inches below the slab all around the car port so it wouldnt have worked to flow concrete under the whole thing. So I had to make a mondo form under slab. I did that by mounting angle iron under the slab with concrete screws. I welded rebar to the angle iron and that got stuck in the ground. I laid wire fence over the rebar and then put plywood over the wire fence. I used pressure treated ply and coated it with roofing tar to reduce the termite food. This was still winter and I was freezing my ass off most of the time. I have one memory of laying horizontally in trench, cold, dirty, and welding the rebar cage around me. I was waiting for one wrong move and I'd zap myself up and I'd be in a prefab hole in the ground.
Once the form was ready I ordered up the concrete which was delivered by truck and did the pour. That was hoot. I didnt know squat about pouring screeing smoothing. The truck driver offered some advice. What a mess. Turned out okay cause the wall went over my smoothing work anyhow.
Then it was time for framing. This was the best part but have very few pictures. You can look at the drawing (jpg,dwg) I made in preparation for the actual work. I did a bunch of reading and hooked up with a guy named Markus that did a lot of rough carpentry. Markus showed me the technique of building a wall on the floor and then lifting that whole frame and knocking it into place. We d knock out the 4x4 supports and just hold up the roof with 2xs stuck into place. I used 2x6 framing, socked down the mudsill with 4.5 lag bolts, framed out the windows and door, used 1/2 inch cdx for sheathing, and that was pretty much it. The things I'd do over is pay a bit more attention to making the mudsil straight and square, cause the whole wall swung out too much and didnt meet the edge of the carport slab right, so the siding will be a little wierd and have bulges where it meets the slab.
For the floor I went with 2x4 sleepers with two sleepers on top of
each other on 24 inch centers over the concrete slab. I placed R19
insulation between the sleepers, laid a vapor barrier, and socked down
3/4 inch tongue and groove plywood. I got this construction from some
book on house construction. Then I started looking around and saw that
most people either did 24 inch centers with 1 & 1/8 inch ply, or 16
inch centers with 3/4. My mistake, starting over I just would go with 16
inch centers and I would have done a lot more work to level the floor
too. Another mistake was to use off the shelf polyethelene and it was
not the right material to use.
The floor is an example of why it would have been good to have some real world experience. It would have been much better to use plastic rolls that were specifically graded for vapor barrier. It wasnt level so tile was out of the question. And I should have used 16 inch centers with 1 1/8 inch tongue and groove ply. Then I could have used hardwood flooring. Next time I'll know better.
Then I did the electrical. I had to install a new sub-panel. In my county in Maryland all electrical has to be installed by a Maryland certified electrician. There's a two stage process for electrical permits, where you get inspected once for rough wiring and then after you close in the whole room.
My wife hooked into a friend that was an electrician in Ohio and after a quick phone call he agreed to come out and give me a hand. Jeremy spent the weekend at our place and showed me how to install a 100 amp subpanel, many outlets and light circuits, and two 220 volt outlets.
Having done the wiring on a less than typical way, how to get the electrical work signed off by the county building inspector?
I contacted a Maryland certified electrical contractor, told him exactly the story of how I got the work done, and asked if he'd apply for the permit. He basically agreed come to my house and say "yep, that work is good enough quality to say we installed it" and run the permit process for me. He said any modifications that had to be done would be done by charging for his usual rates ($65/hr), and he'd charge me the usual rate to apply for the permit ($100).
A journeyman was sent to my house that looked over my work. He found only one problem with an uninsulated ground that –might- get flagged by the inspector and he and I spent about an hour swapping out that part. His company applied for the permit, the inspector came to approve the rough wiring. The inspector had no problems with the wiring (he grumbled about some sort of silly "if it's a shop you should have an outlet every two feet") but signed of on rough wiring stage.
I called the contractor, told him about the inspection, and asked about how to handle the finish wiring. He said since I like to do the work myself he was fine with sending his journeyman out again (he and I got along really well) and then we completed the finish wiring together.
The drywall was hung with a friend named Obie and imani. They did a great job and got all the walls up, and I rented a lift and did the ceiling myself. I strongly recommend the use of drywall buttons which are washers made of thin sheet metal that go under the head of the drywall screw. This made socking the drywall to the ceiling about a million times easier. The lift was a joy to use. Another lesson learned was that butt joints make a bumpy ridge from the ragged edge of the drywall paper. Before putting up the drywall, but after cutting any edge that's going to be a butt joint, bevel the edge with a sander. Its saves miles of effort later on.
Once it was done I shopped around for contractors to help do the
drywall. That didn't work. Cost estimates were to tape, plaster, sand
and get ready for paint. The total square footage was around 900 sqft. I
figured it'd pretty cheap to have someone come in and do the work. From
contractors in the Rockville Maryland area, I recieved three estimates
at $2.30, $1.06, and $0.63 per square foot.
Then same sweetheart, Jeremy, that helped with the electrical
changed my mind to do it myself when he said he come gave me a hand.
The sponge is an extremely efficient use of time and the final result was tres nice.
I built a rack to hold glass rods. It was mostly a lot of router work. This was a jig I used with my router to cut lots of smallish holes.
In order to make this jig, I had to cut out a hole in mdf. That's right, I made a bridge hole cutter to make a jig that makes holes. My bridge was made from a scrap piece of 16 gauge sheet metal. One thing I learned is that if a bridge is used, the trammel of the bridge ends up in the middle of the circle, you better make sure that the circle is attached firmly to the table below it -- I used drywall screws -- its not enough to have the outer portion of the board clamped down to the work surface. This avoids the problem that as the circle gets cut out then it is just floating on the board. The circle goes for a walk as it gets cut out of the board unless pinned down.
Once I got that figured out the system worked really well -- to make the jig.
Returning to my picture, the jig is aligned with a ruler clamped down to the work table. The ruler allows the user to slide the part to correct positions for cutting out an array of holes. The wing nuts move the jig up and down for positioning of each row of holes. The clamp at the bottom of the jig holds the jig and the work firmly against the worktable.
I worked up a spread sheet. Costs were pretty reasonable at under $500. I got the parts from Air Handling Systems. They have a good online catalog and pretty reasonable on the phone. The configuration I used was to put reducers at the torches to just look cool, and put blast gates above the reducers. The blast gates pipes run up to a y-branch which then enter the losone. The losone exits into a flexible rubber hose and then vents out of the house.
Picture me trying to run a router and this little pup climbing up my leg for attention. I had to work for about 6 hours outside and he just wouldnt go away. We went looking for a local wildlife adoption outfit to take him.
I'll have a mental image of him covered in woodchips from the router and following me around for a long, long time. One more brother and one sister have climbed out of the nest and joined in as woodworking assistants. I did some research on the net and decided to do the right thing and found a wildlife rehabilitation to take care of the little nutbags. The wildlife center was really reputable. They had a lot of squirrels I guess this is the season when the pups whose mom has been run over decide to climb out of the nest and look for food. Turns out its very common for them to imprint on the first human they see -- that was lucky me in this case. If it ever happens to you remember not to feed them cows milk. Look for recipes on the net which are in abundance.
I will say that it was really the one I spent an afternoon with was basically the world's most perfect mammalian pet -- friendly, quiet, climbing around on me, and followed me when I put him down. Plus he seemed to like my carpentry. This was very touching.
The wildlife center is going to raise them together, and they'll be released together, and they said that they can be released in my area if they want. My backyard is connected to woods that are zoned as drainage and will not be developed, and there's a big bunch of trees for 'em so that suits me fine. imani and I have visited the wildlife center and helped with feedings.
